3 Tools to Try for Boss-Level Social Media Marketing
We've been doing digital communications and marketing for a looong time, but there are still new tools that come out on the reg that surprise us, delight us, and make our lives easier.
We were browsing around this week and found this list from Hootsuite of the best social media apps in 2019. Naturally, we had to investigate!
Any good social media manager keeps up with lists like these, because you never know when some new app or tool will be the one that saves you hours out of the day or allows you to plan, publish, and measure like even more of a boss. Here are three of our favorites from the list.
And, if you've got a tool you love that you think we should try, let us know by hitting that comment button. We're all about sharing, y'all.
Insta-planning for pros: Planoly
Planoly is an Instagram management tool that's used by retail brands and fancy influencers to schedule content, manage comments, and sell products.
The main appeal of Planoly is that you can pre-plan your posts and visualize how they will look all together on your profile page, an important way to ensure you're sticking to your brand aesthetic and presenting a lovely collection of images to entice new followers to hit that follow button. But the tool does a lot more:
You can manage everyhing from the app or on your desktop (something professional social media managers LOVE),
You can create shoppable links so your followers can shop from you,
You can monitor analytics easily, and,
You can schedule Stories!
Now, there is one drawback: You can't engage with posts from others using this app, and that's important for Instagram. However, if your main goal is to keep your own account looking good and to be able to schedule things out ahead of time, this is a good tool to consider. Once things are planned and scheduled, you can use the Instagram app itself to focus on engaging with other accounts in a real way. You know, like an actual human being would.
Planoly has a free plan with some limited features, but if Instagram is your main social media marketing channel, consider using one of the paid plans; they're affordable (starting at $7 a month).
Digital Art Work: Canva
Canva is like a virtual artist's studio for non-artists. It's an online graphic design platform that lets you create a wide range of visual content easily. Whether you need social media graphics, presentations, posters, or even business cards, Canva provides templates and tools to help you design without the hassle of starting from scratch. It's like having your own digital toolkit for bringing your creative ideas to life.
Some creative ways you can use Canva…
Facebook cover photos
Branded images
Pinterest graphics
Reviews
Instagram Stories
In our blog next week we’ll be going in-depth about how and why visuals are so important, even a little more important than the actual information on a post!
Getting on board with bots: Botletter
You might already be familiar with how Facebook Messenger allows you to market to your customers through pre-loaded questions, away messages that respond when you're not online, and other nifty tricks.
Now we can take that a step further with Botletter, a messaging service through Facebook that lets you set up automated messages and drip campaigns to proactively talk to your customers one-on-one. It's like an email newsletter sent through Facebook.
The key to making this work is to share content that your audience actually wants. For example, this is a great idea for anyone with a podcast, who might want to alert listeners that a new episode is up, or for a blogger who wants to let readers know about their newest post. But this can easily cross the line into annoying if you're just trying to push your customers to buy, buy, buy or donate, donate, donate!
If you try this, think carefully about what value you're creating for your audience that they will be happy to see in their Messenger inboxes, and don't be overly personal or creepy about it. If you're not sure what you can offer that they'll like, spend more time getting know your audience first; you can use our guide for that!